Video endoscopy is known and widely used by medical professionals.
A video endoscopy system typically includes a light source, a fiber-optic endoscope, a video camera, a television monitor, and a VCR for recording video signals. However, such a typical video endoscope system is not intended to be mobile, and is therefore not readily movable from location to location. Instead, a patient must be brought to the system. In the rare case where a video endoscope system having the aforementioned elements is at least minimally mobile, the system is relatively heavy (over 100 pounds), and must be laboriously packed into and unpacked from multiple transportation containers, or at the very least relocated on a large rolling cart.
In nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, one of the leading causes of death is aspiration of salivary secretions, food, and/or liquid due to swallowing dysfunction, and pneumonia resulting therefrom. Moreover, such aspiration an/or pneumonia is one of the most common diagnoses leading to the need for extended hospitalization and further medical intervention in this patient population. Aside from such aspiration, swallowing dysfunction often manifests itself in nursing home residents as malnutrition. In particular, swallowing dysfunction often causes many nursing home residents to lose the motivation and physical ability to consume enough liquid and solid oral nutrition to sustain themselves. As a result, if indicated, a patient in a nursing home may require a swallowing assessment to determine risk of aspiration, to determine the ability to maintain an adequate oral diet, and to make other critical nutritional decisions.
Swallowing assessment often requires a direct examination of the pharyngeal stage of swallowing. Video endoscopy is a preferred method for performing such direct examination. However, because such video endoscopy for a long-term patient has heretofore required either: (1) patient transport from a long-term care setting to a hospital or other facility or (2) transportation of unwieldy video endoscopy equipment to the patient's setting, the availability of the endoscopy has been limited. As a result, it has been difficult to formulate a program to manage swallowing function in long-term care settings based upon endoscopic evaluation. Accordingly, a need exists for an efficient system and method for performing swallowing assessment at a bedside of a patient in a long-term care setting or the like. More specifically, a need exists for a swallowing assessment system and method that efficiently evaluates and manages swallowing disorders such that the incidence of aspiration and malnutrition can be reduced, thereby also reducing mortality, morbidity, and the cost of extensive medical evaluation and treatment. Moreover, a need exists for such a system and method wherein accurate, timely information can be provided to guide the patient, family and medical staff in the nutritional decisions critical to health and quality of life.